


Dissonance

by asofthaven



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bruce Banner is here too, Gen, Pacific Rim AU, for a like a second
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 06:19:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2497685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asofthaven/pseuds/asofthaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's back, Steve is guilty, and Kwoon rooms are great for conversation jaeger pilots have trouble starting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dissonance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictionalfix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalfix/gifts).



> Happy birthday fic for fictionalfix! I hope you, specifically, enjoy this, as might anyone else who stumbles upon it.

Steve could tell that a dismantling of the jaeger program here was going to happen—it was in the set of Marshal Fury's jaw, in the relocation of pilot teams that had no reason to leave their dome, in the way the council's calls and meetings mounted until they pattered out with a guilty silence.

  
All Steve could focus on, though, was that while Bucky was being treated in the medical bay, Steve kept getting called in for these pointless meetings because the country's hometown hero was supposed to be a pillar of support at times like these.

  
Ranger James Buchanan Barnes was what happened when the higher-ups became obsessed with winning—at first no one wanted to take responsibility for him, and it wasn't until Steve shoved the director through the nearest wall that the council admitted to the creation of the Ghost Soldier and its pilot.

  
It was a fitting name; when Steve had gotten close enough to see the pilot—clad in a black suit that imitated the appearance of the jaeger he was pulled out of—he'd been hurtled back seven years, to when Buck's jaeger, the Howling Commando, had gone down in the middle of a kaiju battle.

  
Steve hadn't gone looking for him. He hadn't thought there'd be a body to recover.

  
Being wrong was a twisted sort of relief.

  
"Bucky?" he'd asked, and his voice came out how he felt—broken, confused, hopeful. It was silly to ask—he knew Bucky the same way he knew the weight of his Drivesuit, the workings of his jaeger.

  
"Who the hell is Bucky?" the pilot had said. His voice was flat, but there was something in the flash of his eyes that told of turmoil under the surface.

  
Three months since and Steve still had to visit the medbay two or three times a day to remind himself that it had all been real.

  
"How's Bucky doing?" Nat asked in the mess hall, her voice light and inconsequential as she ripped the wrapper off of her ice cream. Sam listened quietly next to her, his eyes on Steve. Their jaeger, Widowed Falcon, had been the one to pull Bucky out of the Ghost Soldier.

  
Steve tried not to let the question annoy him. They'd been by to visit Bucky before. They knew everything about Bucky's recovery that Steve did.

  
"You know as well as I do," Steve said, and it was all the answer either got before he left, his dinner untouched.

  
He walked quickly, blindly, towards the medbay. He knew that Nat was trying to be sensitive, but recent weeks had been eating away at any patience and goodwill he had towards people. Everywhere he went, there were whispers about the Ghost Soldier's solitary pilot—how his jaeger ate away at his soul until he was nothing more than a shell, a mockery of a person who had as many Kaiju kills as human ones.

  
Bucky Barnes was anything but soulless; a certified jackass, maybe, loyal to a fault, ruthless to an extent, unadvisedly big-hearted, but soulless and Bucky were parallel lines. They weren't supposed to intersect.

  
Steve slowed as he passed the part of the dome where the jaegers were housed, J-Technicians hollering to each other over the sounds of drills and clanging metal. He couldn't see it, but he knew the Ghost Soldier was in there, probably being taken apart so that engineers could marvel at its creation and ensure that it never gets created again.

  
The Ghost Soldier was the result of a desperate desire to create a semi-synthetic Mark VI, one that could so completely meld with a pilot that the metal reflected the movements like a second skin—flawless, fatal, _fast_. It's development was kept from the public; when their attempt to recreate the serum that allowed Steve to pilot a jaeger on his own failed, Director Pierce's team resorted to a process that involved a unique type of desensitization that others would call brainwashing and torture.

  
Recalling what he'd learned sent a fresh wave of nausea over Steve, catching in his throat so he was half bent over as he tried to regain his composure. It was _sickening_ and no matter how many times he thought about it, he could never come to a conclusion that made their actions excusable.

  
He'd told himself to stop giving authority figures the benefit of the doubt, but he couldn't help but cast his mind for a reason, a valid one, for the things they did in the name of preserving peace.

  
Disappointment was becoming an all-too familiar taste on his tongue.

 

 

The medbay was tense; it had been several weeks since Bucky was taken in, and while he no longer directed a murderous aura towards everyone who came too close, there was a lingering air that he was unapproachable, dangerous.

  
They weren't wrong—Buck was still a ranger and one who'd had his skill set widened by Pierce's skewed perception of what was acceptable—but Steve felt hat the way the medical crew skittered about was a bit much.

  
He spotted Bucky immediately; Doctor Banner was leaning over him with a tray of doctor-approved food and concern. Steve could tell they were talking; Bucky had developed a way of addressing those he felt were in a position of power over him that involved trying to seem as small as possible while also maintaining his aura of intimidation.

  
Bruce left the tray next to Bucky's bed and fiddled with the IV Bucky was attached to, removing it and depositing the needle into a trashcan. Bucky rubbed the spot where the needle bit into his skin, face expressionless, but shoulders relaxed.

  
Steve made sure to make his approach obvious, greeting Bruce and the other patients loudly and sincerely as he bee-lined for Bucky's corner of the room.

  
"How's the medbay treating you?" he asked when he got close enough. There weren't any private rooms in the medical bay—it would require the metal that was being put towards keeping the jaegers functional—but Nat had tacked a large swatch of cloth to one of the rods in the ceiling after Bucky inadvertently revealed that he didn't like the openness of the medical bay. Some of the doctors and nurses were put off by not being able to see Bucky at all times, but as Bruce had taken responsibility for Bucky's care and wasn't bothered by it, the matter had been dropped quickly.

  
Bucky didn't answer at first; he looked like he'd been puking again, withdrawal from the concoction of drugs he'd been on to pilot that jaeger and keep him obedient. But then something slid behind his eyes, and he said, "You know, I'm not great company like this."

  
"You never were to begin with," Steve replied, realizing only a moment after that it might be too soon to make jokes like that when Bucky was still having trouble associating _James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes_ with himself.

  
But Bucky didn't seem bothered by the words. "Must be an improvement then," he remarked, reaching for the toast on his food tray and nothing else.

  
Visiting Bucky was always a toss-up; sometimes he was quiet, sometimes he was angry, sometimes he had a glimmer of an attitude everyone thought had been lost. Today, it seemed Bucky wasn't in the mood to talk. Steve could talk enough for the both of them on a good day—everything from the politics of the dome to the latest mishap Nat had gotten him involved in—but his tongue didn't seem able to form words today. Nothing he started to say came out as what he wanted to say.

  
"How do you feel?" he asked when what he really wanted to know was _what do you remember today?_

  
"You sure you don't want that pasta?" when he was thinking, _do you feel like Bucky yet?_

  
Except that wasn't quite what he wanted to ask either. It was more like, _you know I'm here for Bucky, whoever he is, right?_

  
But the words wouldn't come and so he let quiet reign, watching Bucky out of the corner of his eye.

  
Bucky's improvements were small, but steady; he'd yet to fully remember his life before Pierce— _I was accepted into the Ranger program before you, wasn't I?_ he'd said once, then refused to say anything more about it—but there were small things that told Steve he was getting better, like how Bucky would greet Nat and Sam when they came by to visit, and how he sometimes asked for things to read, science books lent by Bruce, magazines by Nat, whatever-the-hell Sam and Steve managed to scrounge. They piled haphazard on the chair next to his bed, the newest, a pop-culture magazine that Nat kept sending him, abandoned on the bed next to his metal hand.  
Seeing the robotic arm attached to Bucky's left side always sent a spark of rage into Steve's system, one that was directed at everybody he knew and plenty of people he didn't.

  
Bucky's flesh and bone arm, broken beyond repair seven years ago, had been replaced with one that connected directly to the Mark VI jaeger without the use of a Drivesuit, allowing it to move more effectively and immediately to the pilot's whims. Synthetic skin with Bucky's DNA as a base had been attached to the jaeger, stretched dull grey against the black-painted metal, as a way to further combine man with machine. That also meant that the damage the jaeger took was replicated almost exactly on the pilot—when Widowed Falcon has finally taken down the jaeger, Bucky's arm was a mangled mess of twisted metal and hanging wires, the scars across his body attesting to damage from previous battles.

  
The arm was repaired by Stark and Bruce, but the fact that Steve hadn't done anything to prevent it from being necessary made acid run through his throat, burning low in his gut.

  
There was a lot he hadn't done and Steve was still figuring out how to coexist with the guilt that always simmered in his chest.

  
"Let's go to the Kwoon Room," Steve blurted out.

  
It probably wasn't a good idea; he didn't know if Bucky has been given the clear to walk freely around the dome, let alone engage in any sort of combat, but they were both Rangers and it was the only way he knew how to talk with another pilot when neither of them knew what to say.

  
Bucky leveled a blank look at him. Steve worried for a moment that he'd have to explain what the Kwoon room was—it wouldn't be the first time he'd explained a concept that should have been second nature to Bucky—but then Bucky said, in a dry voice, "There's no point if neither of us need a second pilot."

  
Steve's relief was palpable. "But it's a great way to forge connections and train your body and--"

  
Bucky interrupted, "We're not searching for drift compatibility."

  
A hot flash of anger hissed up Steve's spine, but he tamped it down with two steadying breaths. He thought it was bad when Bucky wouldn't speak, doing what he was told with a child's obedience, but hearing Bucky talk about everything on the basis of its utility was far, far worse.

  
"Not everything has to be divided between useful and unnecessary," Steve snapped, then, recoiling from his sharpness, "Do you really want to stay in the medical bay all the time?"

  
Bucky stared at him for a long moment, the tiniest crease between his eyebrows betraying his mask of indifference.

  
"What's the real reason you want us to go to the Kwoon Room?" Bucky asked flatly, in a manner painfully reminiscent of the Bucky of before.

  
"I think we both need a fight," Steve replied after a moment. It made him feel guilty—he wasn't supposed to want to fight, he wasn't supposed to have all this anger boiling just under the surface, but he did and he couldn't possibly be expected to keep it all—

  
"Let's go," Bucky said, kicking off his blankets and changing into the plain clothing piled next to his hospital bed. If it weren't for the careful nothing in his eyes and the expanse of silver on his left, he'd look like any other Ranger in the dome.

  
It was more comforting a sight than Steve would like to admit.

 

 

The Kwoon room was empty, so Steve and Bucky picked their staffs without worry, settling themselves a few feet apart on the mat, Steve with his his knees loose and arm tensed, Bucky with his staff held across his body, unassuming.

  
Steve felt the anger he'd been ignoring for the past few weeks rise as they fought, directionless and abundant and painful. Bucky was efficient and deadly, stacking two points against Steve that would have been fatal if they hadn't been using wooden staffs, and maybe still would have been if Bucky hadn't jerked his swings short, as if remembering at the last second that this was training, not a mission.

  
After that point, Steve found it much easier to let his anger ease out through every parry with his Kwoon staff, every shuffle forward and back.

  
The air between them strained as they attacked and feinted and dodged, breath coming out in harsh puffs and controlled inhales. There was a question in the way their Kwoon staffs collided, a remark in how one staff sliced upwards while the other body hinged to the side to avoid it, but Steve couldn't for the life of him figure out what was being said.

  
They surpassed the four-point win marker easily—it went to Bucky, and Steve decided that he really must have let his reflexes rust—but they continued without pause.

  
"You know he isn't coming back," Bucky said quietly, when they took a break after reaching twenty points.

  
Steve wiped his brows with the edge of his shirt, shrugging. "Neither is the Steve that he knew."

  
The fight became different after that, lighter almost, even though the fierceness of their movements didn't dull. Something heavy fled the room and their frames with those two sentences, and by the time they reached thirty points, Steve was grinning and Bucky was telling him that he shouldn't look so happy about getting beaten up.

  
"Careful, boys," a familiar voice crowed. The pair paused, their attention shifting towards the doorway, "You might burn permanent tracks in the mat."

  
Nat was leaning against the doorway, Sam just behind her with crossed arms. They were both smiling.

  
"We heard there was a medbay break," Sam said conversationally, "Real panic started up in the rest of the dome when they figured it was Barnes who was gone."

  
He seemed amused and it occurred to Steve that he had no idea how long they'd been in the Kwoon room. He released himself from his fighting stance, letting his staff drop harmless at his side. Bucky imitated him, his gaze taking on the faintest suggestion of confusion when Nat wiggled her fingers at him cheerily.

  
"Oops," Steve offered sheepishly. Sam laughed loudly, coming into the room and throwing a friendly arm over Steve's shoulder.

  
"Let's get back before they evacuate the whole dome," Sam said, giving Steve a little shove towards the door. Nat twirled the staff away from him, tossing it with an unfair accuracy towards the rest of the staffs. It missed, but Steve had a feeling it was an intentional miss.

  
Sam turned back to Bucky while Steve went to put it back properly, shooting Nat his best annoyed look.

  
"You too, Buchanan," Sam added, gesturing towards the door. "I'm not joking about the evacuation business."

  
Bucky didn't say anything, placing his Kwoon staff back before conceding to Sam's wish. The four of them left the Kwoon room and were found almost immediately by Marshal Fury and Doctor Banner.

  
"You think you can just take Barnes out of the medical bay whenever you feel like it?" Fury demanded.

  
"James shouldn't be involved in any strenuous activities given the uncertain nature of his biological condition," Bruce said, overlapping Fury, "We don't know how well he'd going to react once his body has recovered from—"

  
"—an uproar in the medical bay once they saw he was gone, did you forget that Barnes is still considered—"

  
"—your muscular structure is still unstable, are you feeling any discomfort anywhere? And what about your breathing and reflexes, how—"

  
"Relax," Nat said off-handedly, winking at Steve and Bucky, "It's good for Barnes to get some exercise in, isn't it?"

  
"The dome could always use a little excitement that isn't kaiju related," Sam added.

  
"All of you. In my office. Now."

  
And hour and a half later, they were headed back to the medical bay with the understanding that, outside of kaiju attacks, none of them were allowed to leave their rooms or beds for the next three weeks.

  
"We'll see you later, James," Sam called as they approached the junction that separated the living quarters from the rest of the dome.

  
"Why do you always call me something different?" Bucky asked, slowing to a stop. Steve mirrored him—he knew that Bucky knew where he was going, but he was still uncomfortable with letting him walk around the dome alone when the majority of the dome thought he was one false move away from murder.

  
"You haven't told me which you prefer yet," Same said easily, stopping also, "I'm just trying them out till you pick one."

  
Bucky stared at him for a long while before walking again, his expression unreadable. Steve waved the other two away sheepishly, falling into step with Bucky.

  
"I don't know which one is me," Bucky said, just outside the medbay. He wouldn't look at Steve.

  
"All of them," Steve answered after a moment’s thought. "If you want them to be."

  
Bucky didn't answer, as if the offering of a choice was more than he knew what to do with. Steve figured that, like the memory loss, was temporary.

**Author's Note:**

> ~~cutting it a little close to the end of the day whew~~
> 
> It's a little rushed, but I hope it was good!! Everything needs a Pacific Rim AU.


End file.
